001Okay. Um, good afternoon everyone. Um, it is, uh, the last in session live of the 2026 legislative session. Um, we have plenty to cover today. Um, so without further ado, we're going to jump right in. Um, and would just sort of remind you as, um, we're getting started. Um, if you have any questions, um, for any of us today, please feel free to use the question and answer box um, that is, uh, in your control bar. um we'll be monitoring that and um answering questions either in writing through that box um or verbally while we are presenting. Okay. So um today we're going to spend quite a bit of time um unpacking the budget proposals that came out. Um thanks for bearing with us in not having in session live last week. Um I had
002the session cold and I had no voice. You would have not wanted to hear me last Friday. Um but hopefully you all got to read our in session written publication um and see some of the first details around the budget. So we're going to dive into those both the operating and the capital budgets today. Um we'll take a look at some of the things that have happened this week outside of budgets and then um let you know what we anticipate for next week um which is week nine, the final week of the legislative session. Um uh that'll go all the way through next Thursday, March 12th, uh which is when the 2026 session will close out or adjourn snee die. Okay. Um so we're going to jump right into the operating budget. Um, as you
003hopefully read last week, um, and have heard from other colleagues in the K12 space, including hopefully your, um, folks in your district teams as well, um, the operating budgets overall are, um, just really not looking and feeling good, um, for K through 12. Um, there are a number of places that, um, we could focus and lots of information, um, that we'll go through today, primarily in three sort of primary buckets. um one around protecting local effort assistance funding, another around protecting transition to kindergarten funding, and a third around um restoring bus depreciation funding. Um each of those three buckets um contain significant funding reductions in um either the House, Senate um budgets, or both. Um so we're going to dive into each of those um in more detail right now. And again, please use that
004Q&A box um if you have any questions for us. Okay, so taking a look at local effort assistance. Um we have two sort of um different funding reductions being proposed. Um, the Senate is proposing a $59 million reduction to local effort assistance and the House is proposing a $25 million reduction in local effort assistance. Um what we want to remind you is that last year when the legislature raised the levy lid for school districts, they also made a very clear promise to come back and essentially equalize levy authority by increasing LEA over the bienium so that um you know our property poor districts have an equitable chance at funding. Um the reductions that are included in these budgets um absolutely go backwards on that promise. Um, and so essentially what you might remember is that
005last year school districts were given $150 per student in LEA. And then in the 2027 calendar year, there was an additional $150 per student that was baked into the budget. Um, the $59 million reduction in the Senate actually backs both of those um increases out. So, it removes the 2027 promise for $150 per student and it removes the $150 per student that you received last year. Um whereas the House, which is just a little bit less than half um of the reduction in the Senate, would only pull back the $150 increase um that was promised for the 2027 school year. Um the ask for legislators on this topic is obviously to restore funding um for LEA and I think as you all are considering emails, phone calls, text messages, etc. to your legislators as they're
006navigating budget discussions, um we would recommend that you share with them how your district utilizes these funds in order to support student learning. All right. Um, moving on to transition to kindergarten, we have two sort of different funding reduction amounts um on this topic as well with the Senate um reducing transition to kindergarten by $32 million or um 2,200 slots statewide um and then the House reducing it a little bit less at $20 million um or $1,800 slots statewide. Um each of these um budget proposals contain different sort of definitions um by which the state will have to use to um essentially redistribute um the existing transition to kindergarten slots following these reductions. And as we look at the two um we we would prefer the Senate language um because one of the things that
007the House references in their definition is extreme child care deserts um as one of the sort of priorities that the state would have to look at when they're distributing transition to kindergarten slots. And um what that looks like it would mean based on our read of the extreme childcare desert maps is that that could potentially get in the way of existing TTK programs across our state. So the ask here for legislators um again is to restore funding for transition to kindergarten. Um, if that's not possible, at a minimum, um, we would encourage you to ask them to remove references to extreme child care deserts like I just talked about and any new eligibility restrictions for the new school year. Um, anything that they can do to prevent sort of harmful redistribution of slots. Um, because
008we really don't want to see any of your existing TTK programs be eliminated um, as a part of this reduction. Diving into one more space in the operating budget, um, and that is school bus depreciation. Um, both the House and the Senate budgets, um, would essentially propose about a $21 million reduction in funding here. And those budgets would essentially reduce payments to school districts and extend the depreciation schedule from 8 years to 10 years for category A buses. um that's essentially your smaller buses. And then from 13 years to 15 years for your category C and D buses, that's generally your big yellow school buses. Um we um that that is problematic um for a lot of reasons. And both of these budgets also would essentially remove any dollars spent on buses from federal grants
009or rebates from your depreciation payments. So, just as an example, um if you were to buy um a bus that was $500,000 and maybe you received um a federal grant that was going to pay $200,000 of that bus and you did that, um that $200,000 would essentially be removed um from the overall depreciation payments over the course of um should this budget reduction pass 15-year depreciation schedule in your school districts. Um the ask here um as well is to restore funding. And if that's not possible, a couple of things you might suggest is to have them grandfather buses that you've already ordered um or otherwise contractually committed to. Um apply some of these changes pro prospectively um so that they don't apply to existing purchases. Um and then to protect districts from any unexpected and
010retroactive financial impacts. One of the concerns that we have heard um this week is that some school districts may essentially at the end of the year, should this language pass as it is, face a bill from OSPI on their school district depreciation payments instead of a reimbursement. Um so we really don't want to see any districts um in that case. And I know OSPI feels the same way as well. I'm going to pause because I see something popped into the chat. Um, hi Jim. Good to good to see your name and thank you for always being here. Um, Jim uh references sent a note in that said um that the um childc care desert maps that I was referencing um show high populations in um areas like King County, Spokane, Tri Cities um and other
011areas as deserts. Um, so there's some requests to DCYF um to have clarification on this topic. Um, and those um those requests have gone on unanswered according to Jim. Thanks Jim for sharing that. Um, I see a hand raised from Michael and I'm not sure how to unmute you um at this point on the webinar. Um, it would be great, Michael, if you could, um, uh, throw your question or comment in the Q&A box and, um, we'll be happy to address it that way. I'm sorry that, um, I don't have that capability off the top of my hand. Cynthia, do you have any sense on how to unmute or should we just Actually, let Michael, let's just take your question um, in the box for now. Thank you and sorry about that. Okay, while we
012wait for that, um, two other items that I want to just sort of brief you on, um, quickly. Um, details will come out on both of these in in session, the written publication later today. Um, so we've got time to dive into the capital budget. Um, but want to let you know that we are also working on um, some work in the budget around the state board of health rules. um essentially working to make sure that any ruling from the state board of health remains not required to be implemented until there's funding provided by the state legislature. That's something that we're working on. And then also um on the topic of Medicaid, this week we were alerted to um an inclusion in the House budget that would essentially reduce um the school district Medicaid match
013um by about $3.4 $4 million statewide from 50% to 25%. Um we signed on to a letter this week urging budget writers to reject that cut in their final budget. Um that and details about both of these topics will be included um in our in session written publication this week. Okay. And Michael did not have a question. It was an accident raising your hand. Um good to know. Okay. We will move right on then um to Tyler to talk about the capital budget. Um Tyler, I'll let you introduce yourself. Thanks for being here. Um I'm going to stop my screen share and I believe you have privileges to share yours. >> Awesome. Thanks, Logan. And uh thank you for all the work that you're doing, particularly these amendments that you're chasing down. I think you
014might have called it this, but I'm not sure. Whackable. And it truly is. Uh, so thank you for being so diligent in whacking all these moles as they continue to appear. Uh, hi everyone. I'm Tyler Munch, uh, OSPI. Um, I've probably spoken with some of you before. Today, I'm going to give you a little overview of our capital budget. So, I'm going to get my screen share going. And Logan, just let me know if you can't see my screen. If not, I'll assume that you can. Um, so I'm going to start up here everyone uh with our small district modernization grant program. So for those of you who are unfamiliar, the small district modernization grant program provides fully funded capital facility repair and modernization grants to small school districts with under a thousand students. It's
015an inherently equitable program because it provides fully funded grants. And so this is a program that if you have limited bond capacity, limited debt capacity, limited levy capacity um or you're failing your bonds, uh this this can help you out and provide a fully funded grant. So this is a great program strongly supported by OSPI. We requested $130 million. Uh Governor Ferguson put in $74 million and then Governor Ferguson also fully funded planning grants. And I do want to call that out. I don't have um I I don't have perspective on what number we'll be looking at in the conference budget on this, but Governor Ferguson and Superintendent Reichd Doll both requested to fully fund the planning grant list, which ensures the maximum number of school construction projects can move forward in future years. So,
016um I appreciate the governor a lot for that investment. Uh the house came in at a disappointing number here, $29 million. You know that the average price of one of these projects is $6 million. So that's going to get you five, six projects. It's not that great. Um we'll see where they land. This is a Senate program, so it's traditional that the House is usually a little lower. Um but it's disappointing nonetheless. On the Senate side, $71 million investment. Um, you can see both and the House and the Senate are really cutting our planning grant level from where the governor is. And this means that we will have less capacity and less money to do more projects in the future. What I've heard legislators say is, Tyler, we don't want to pay for a preconstruction
017grant unless we're sure that we have the construction dollars to follow. That makes good sense from a budget writing perspective. From my perspective, I want to get as many of these planning grants funded to keep the pressure on the legislature to funding these projects. Uh, and so we're continuing to push ahead for uh more robust planning grant funding. I expect the conference budget to land somewhere around $50 million on this, maybe even 70. I don't think we'll be going down to 20 or 30. Uh, but we will see. The next capital program I want to talk to you all about is the school seismic safety grant program. This is pretty straightforward. It provides school seismic safety retrofits, building relocations, and building replacements uh to schools that are in active tsunami and earthquake zones. Uh pretty
018much covers all of Western Washington as you might imagine. And we've begun our work out on the coast because those schools not only have the highest uh liquefaction um potential for their ground soils, but uh they also have the dual tsunami threat. So it makes a lot of sense to start out there. So um last year we received over $und00 million for this program. Because it's a supplemental year, these numbers are a little lower and that's to be expected. Uh we requested $50 million which would allow the design of all these projects that you see right here. They're pretty much all out on the coast. Uh and this would have fully funded all those projects. The governor went lower here at $28 million which funds these three projects right here. The House met the governor's
019funding level and funded these three projects right here, North Beach, Hokquam, and Hokquam. And then the Senate went really disappointing and low on this this $5 million low ball. Um this program was created to help school districts in dangerous areas prepare themselves for future seismic risk and earthquakes. The bill specified that the state could pay up to 100% share of the project cost um depending on the circumstances. And now all of a sudden the Senate seems pretty gunshy to fund their investment from a few years ago. To further complicate the matter, all these projects that you see right here are in the House budget chair's district. So the Senate sees this as an opportunity to force the House to negotiate for these projects and then they can get something in return for that. So I
020expect this level to be um I I think we can fund these top three projects. So I would expect this to come out at about 28 million. We will see and um we will have a more robust request for this in the bianial session that's ahead of us. Healthy kids healthy schools. This is a great program. Um the funding for this particular round of healthy kids healthy schools is solely for lead and water remediation. The program also provides physical uh like training equipment, nutritional from scratch cooking equipment. Uh but right now they only funded the lead and water remediation portion of the program. Um and so you can see we requested $2.5 million. The governor uh put in $2.5 million. The house put in $5 million. And if you're wondering why, I think you can
021thank representatives Plet and Ken for that. They really support this program. So they doubled the funding. Uh and then the Senate a little lower here, a million dollars less than we would have asked for. Um, but I expect we'll get our full funding request of 2.5 on this. So, uh, if that happens, we'll be quite appreciative. These are some scapar transitional projects. This just has to do with, uh, these projects that were funded in the last budget. Um, we had to do some accounting work to make sure that they could receive money from the small district modernization grant and receive money in the supplemental budget. Uh so this is just a little budget work to keep these three projects moving. We split their funding up over two uh different budget sessions and so these projects
022will be funded. Uh and then we have the SCAP enhancement pilot project. This is the brainchild of the house of representatives which is why you see that the house invested um 3.79 million in this whereas we requested nothing. The governor requested nothing and the Senate requested nothing. With that said, I think this is a solid investment if they do it the right way. The legislature wants to pilot Representative McIntyre's 1044. It's a capital construction bill with uh for districts with limited bonding capacity. So, I think there's a good chance that we pilot that 1044 program. um probably most likely on Wakaya come here, but that will be the legislaturator's decision, not OSPIs. Um if this money doesn't go into this scap enhancement pilot project, it will likely be invested in seismic safety or small district
023modernization. All right, school electrification. This is a gift from the Senate or pardon me, the House. Uh and you can see the House is the only one who put an adjustment here. 53.29 $29 million. We like this. Um, as you all know, school districts have to comply with the Clean Buildings Act that provides y'all with a lot of unfunded mandates um on your buildings. And if you don't hit um the energy intensity use targets by the certain benchmark timelines that the state has provided, your district gets fined. Uh that's a giant unfunded mandate. So, we asked the legislature, why don't you put some money behind this so that we can help our districts implement? uh and the the House uh took that and ran with it. Put $53 million behind electrification. I've told both the
024House and the Senate that we support the funding for electrification. I also was very clear with both chambers that if this money doesn't go into electrification, it needs to go into the small district modernization grant program and the school seismic safety grant program. So every time there's an issue on the capital budget front that we're not sure will get funded, we're always trying to say, "Hey, you got to keep the money in K12 at the very least." So if you don't want to put in electrification, if you only want to put $1 million in healthy kids, healthy schools, spread that money out and invest in our other K12 capital grant programs. Um, all right. And we are almost at the end here. distressed schools. Uh this is um this isn't really a program. This is
025actually just a budget section that the Senate uses to put projects that they care about. Uh so we often call it the lottery or you spin the wheel and you get in here. What this really tells me is someone from Witworth Orca K8 School was talking to their state legislator and someone from Eatenville High School was talking to their state legislator and so they got these two projects funded uh in the Senate. budget. We'll see if those projects get funded. If they don't, I expect that money to stay in our K12 bucket. Um, overall, I'll just note the difference in funding totals on the bottom. You can see Superintendent Wright Doll requested $183 million. Can see Governor Ferguson funded our request at $97 million. The House of Representatives at $131 million. This is very rare.
026The House of Representatives is generally our low watermark. It's usually the Senate that's the high watermark. So, thank you to the House of Representatives and Capital Budget Chair Kalen uh for that healthy investment. And then the Senate budget is $40 million lower than the House. So, uh I think for the past seven years, I've been saying we need the Senate budget. We need the Senate budget, but uh on this capital budget, we prefer the House budget and it's not particularly close. So, uh, that is my, um, overview of the K12 budgets. We'll have a conference budget here in the next week or so. And, uh, I'll send out an update to Logan so he can share it with all of you about what's included in that conference budget. Um, Logan, I don't know if there
027were any questions, but that's it for me. >> Thanks, Tyler. We appreciate you. >> Of course. Um, we do have one question, but also just want to let you know we had someone just say how helpful um, your spreadsheet and presentation is. Um, they asked if it could be shared after the call. I told them we put this in in session last week. Thank you for sharing it with us then. >> Um, and we will put it in in session again this week as well. >> Awesome. >> Um, one question that was asked about um, the lead and water remediation. Yeah. um is if that can include um PFAS in water remediation also >> EFAS I need to >> PFAS I need to look up this acronym oh PF oh okay sorry >> sorry director
028>> PFAS >> no this this makes sense uh to me so the legislation is specific um that it is tied to lead levels in water um but I can go double check if there's any wiggle room for these PFAS. Um either way, if they're not currently included, I bet that this is something we can get included in the future. So, uh I'm a little bit ignorant on uh the health side of this, but I'm certainly happy to advocate for getting these included in the program in the near future. Uh I don't think they're included right now. If I find out I'm wrong, I'll let Logan know. But right now, I do believe it's limited to lead. >> Great. Any other questions for Tyler? Uh, nope. Just a nod to say thank you from Director Stone
029who asked that question. Um, noting that it's a rising problem for schools. >> Yeah. No, thank you for letting me know. It's important to put that on my radar. I'll get a bug in Rep. Pretty and maybe next year we'll have a new program. So, uh, thank you all for taking the time to listen. And Logan, thanks for bringing me in and thanks for all your work, man. >> Thanks, Tyler. We appreciate you. Thanks for all the information. >> No problem. Have a good weekend to those of you that uh are able to uh enjoy it. And Logan, I hope you're not working tomorrow, man. >> I'm going to try not to. >> We'll see what the legislature is doing. Thanks, Tyler. >> All right. Thanks, everyone. Bye-bye. >> Okay. Um, let me just throw
030our slides back up on the screen. Okay, so we have made our way through um most of the budget updates. Um, we're going to move into sort of timeline um for what's left and then a couple of bills um that we want you all to be aware of. Um, so this week, um, outside of doing, um, all of the budget work, um, the legislature has still been very busy, um, working to pass bills, um, off their respective House and Senate floors. Um, Monday, March 2nd, um, was another self-imposed cut off for the legislature. um meaning that any bill that didn't make its way through its fiscal opposite house fiscal committee um was no longer active after Monday um which meant that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today um are all um sort of all floor time
031um for members of the House and Senate. Um the last couple of evenings in particular have um turned into late nights, especially over in the House. Um I think the House might have adjourned at 1 or 2 am um last night. Um so they have been continuing to hear and move bills um through some of the final steps of the process. Um as it relates to um some of the stuff that we're watching most closely um there are still two policy bills moving that um contain key policy for us. Um on the topic of sales tax exemptions um for K through2 school districts um you have heard us bring up many bills um over the past couple of weeks that um all at one point or another were a vehicle for this policy. Um at
032this point in time um substitute Senate Bill 6343 um the millionaire's tax is what appears to be um the most active vehicle um for this sales tax exemption. Um, Senate Bill 6351 is technically still in play and still moving. Um, however, if that bill was to be the vehicle, it would need to make its way all the way through um through the House. That bill, it's a Senate bill, it was passed off of the Senate floor earlier this week. Um, and so that bill would is now sitting in the House Appro House House Finance Committee. Um, and in order for that to be the vehicle for this tax, it would need to be heard and passed out of committee, moved to the rules committee, pulled from there, and brought to the floor. Um, whereas the
033millionaire's tax is much farther along. Um, and from what we've been hearing um could potentially be brought to the floor um over the weekend um or early next week. So, um that bill um continues to be one that we're watching um as it does contain the school district sales tax exemption. Additionally, Senate Bill 6260 um uh we have talked about most of what's in that bill already as a part of the budget. Um that's essentially the the funding and programming reductions um policy bill. The one other topic that's included in the bill that we didn't talk about when we went over the budget is that um Senate Bill 6260 also um makes a uh a reduction by about $14 million I believe it is um to running start programs across the state um essentially moving
034that per student FTE from 1.4 to 1.2. Um, some of the main questions that I've been hearing on the topic of running start is, um, in moving the FTE down to 1.2, um, will students still have the opportunity to graduate, um, with their associates degree alongside receiving their high school diploma? We know a lot of students um, go into Running Start, particularly um, for that purpose or to get as close to that purpose as possible. And um our understanding is that technically students will still be able to um receive their AA at the same time um as high school diploma. There will just be sort of less um flexibility um for students to be able to do that. Um the last time that FTE for Running Start was at 1.2 um was in 2023. So
035it's essentially bringing that FTE back down um to 2023 um funding levels. A couple of bills that didn't advance um that you may have read about in in session last week um are Senate Bill um that's the school district financial management bill that was um by Senator Doer um that was also just for your information the last policy bill that was still active that contained um any requirement for new um school board training around funding and finance um over the course of the last 8 weeks, I think there has been three or maybe four bills um that had attempted to create a new schoolboard requirement um for training on that topic. This was the last one that still um was moving through the process. This bill is no longer um however, one thing I will
036sort of note on that topic. Um and we have not heard um anything about this to date, but um we are we like to be transparent, let you know what we know. um is that technically it is still possible that a schoolboard training requirement could come up um in the form of um the budget. Um we've not heard from any legislators that anyone is intending to do that at this time. Um, however, it is technically possible and given how much we've heard from um, House members, Senate members, Republicans, Democrats, um, just generally in support of that concept, I would just flag um, that that is still a possibility um, for when we see the final budgets um, which will possibly be next week on Wednesday, more likely next week on Thursday, which um, is also
037the day that session um, must adjourn. Um the other bill that we want to let you know um that sadly didn't advance is House Bill 2636. Um that was the Representative RDE bill that would have created the public education steering committee um to essentially review um performance operations and funding of our education system and make recommendations to legislators as to um what possible changes could be made unfunded mandates um to be removed or funded. etc. Um sad to see that that bill um did not make its way out of the Senate Ways and Means Committee um on Monday this week. Um also just want to give you sort of a there's a a a laundry list on here of education bills that we've been following and tracking that have made their way either through all
038the way their opposite chamber um which is sort of the first list here. meaning that those bills will have to then go back to their chamber of origin um if they were changed um for that group to essentially say yes, we agree with the changes um or no, we don't. Um if on any of those bills um the other chamber does not agree with changes um there will essentially be a committee um appointed of of legislators um that will work to negotiate a solution um that's amanable um for both the house and the senate and after that solution is sort of negotiated um both chambers will have to actually take a vote to say yep we agree with this solution um if both chambers do that then the bills will make their way to the
039governor's ask. Um if both chambers do not agree, then the bill does not move. There are also a couple of bills um only three so far um that are education related that have made their way to the governor's desk for signatures. So just wanted you to have this list in front of you. All of this is information you can see on our bill watch. Um but wanted you to know what we know. And then as we look ahead um we have six days left um of the legislative session and um we essentially want to bring your attention or sort of highlight three things. Um first is that um the attention will really continue to be focused on final budget negotiations. um members of the House and Senate um budget writing team, which is um essentially
040um leadership, and then those that have made uh their those that are in um positions of uh leadership on the budget committees. Um those are essentially the folks that are um in the room negotiating um between the House and Senate members. Um that those negotiations will continue over the weekend and into next week. Um, we anticipate seeing the final budget, sometimes referred to as the conference budget. Um, like I said, possibly on Wednesday, um, more likely on Thursday. Um, additionally, I just sort of referenced um, the negotiation process on policy bills um, that have made their way through both chambers, but um, have maybe seen changes along the way. Um there will be a lot of that work that goes on um next week um between Monday and Thursday. And then um next Thursday of
041course is the last day of the legislative session. Um affectionately referred to as siny die. Um we have no idea what time um the legislature will officially adjourn on Thursday. Um we know they've got some big votes ahead of them um including um some discussion and vote around um whatever budget solution they end up with. Um so just want to let you know it's sort of negotiating time um for the rest of session for the most part. Cynthia, anything you'd add um to that as to what we're sort of expecting or could be watching um for next week? >> Um no, I think you've covered it. Honestly, we're really going to be waiting to see what those budget negotiations are going to look like and especially right now, like we know that those conversations are
042happening. Um, so we're going to keep waiting and see what happens for next week. >> Thanks, Cynthia. Um, just checking the Q&A box. Um, seeing a comment from Lisa, um, uh, Lisa Gunthy of Lake Washington. Um just noting that um a child in her district um would not have the ability to earn her AA alongside high school diploma without remaining at that 1.4 FTE level. Yeah, I know that that increase a couple years ago um meant a lot um for students and it's really unfortunate um to see uh the legislature going back on that increase. Thank you for sharing, Lisa, and I'm sorry to hear that. Um, okay. What we want to leave you with um today is um that we hope um all of you will join us um in the Advocacy Action Network
043on March 24th at noon. Um if you were here last time, we said March 17th. Um I now have to attend an event on March 17th. Um so we bumped that a week to the 24th. uh March 17th at noon um the advocacy action network will be meeting um to essentially kick off the interim together. Um you hear us talk all the time about how advocacy is a year-round process. Um clearly there is significant work um that we um as sort of a collective um need to do with our legislators in order to um advance priorities um during the 2027 session. And so we thought it would be um the best use of the March Advocacy Action Network meeting to really focus on navigating the interim and kicking it off um sort of in a
044in a strong bold way. So um would encourage you all to um join us for that lunch hour. Um, if you already attend or receive the Advocacy Action Network meeting list, um, you're already going to get the invite. Um, if you don't get those yet, um, just send Cynthia and I an email at strategic advocacywazda.org and we'll be happy to add you to that list. Um, per usual, um, we have a number of resources um, that are here to support you um, as we move into the last um, week of session. Um we hope throughout this session that these resources have been helpful um for you um most particularly some of the changes that we made to the bill watch this year um as well as um our legislative action planning tool. Um, but hope
045these resources are engaging. And if you ever have thoughts about resources that could be helpful um to support your further engagement um in legislative work that we don't currently provide, um Cynthia and I are always um here um and would be happy to chat with you, especially during the interim um about any ideas that you might have. So um would remind you there. And then um just a couple of action items for you. Um, we would of course urge you to connect with your legislators um to encourage them to protect school funding um based on all of the different areas that we've talked about today as they navigate final budgets. Um, just because your legislator is not a budget writer per se um for for a majority of you, right? There's only a handful of
046those. Um, it's important for messages about um protecting um and safeguarding school funding. uh to be in the hands, eyes, and minds of all legislators. Um so would encourage you to send some emails um this week or this weekend um if you haven't done that yet. Um watch for our final session summary um coming soon. Um next week we will not have in session live um with session ending. Um there's also um an event um that I'll be at next Friday. Um so this group will not meet then. And then of course um join the advocacy action network meeting on March 24th. Um you know we we definitely have um some work to do this interim and as Jim Kalcowski is saying in in the Q&A box right now um it is very true um
047that most of our legislators do not understand the complexity of school funding and the issues um that you all are navigating each and every day. um we will need to continue to sort of talk about that and um work together to figure out how we can collectively um message that complexity and message our needs to legislators. Um as Jim says, keep our foot on the gas pedal. Um so anyway, would really appreciate um all of your sort of time and attention um in joining that work. And if March 24th doesn't work for you, um there will be plenty of other opportunities that Cynthia and I will be hosting um monthly over the course of the interim. So would appreciate um your connection there. Okay, that's what we've got for you today. Um thank you all
048for engaging. Um really appreciate some of the dialogue we've been able to have through the Q&A box. Um, and you know, with this being our last in session live for the year, um, just want to sort of iterate that we hope this, um, venue for legislative updates has been helpful, um, for you. Cynthia and I have lots of ideas already about how we can strengthen and improve this space um, as we prepare for the 2027 legislative session. Um, and would of course welcome any ideas that you have, too. So, with that, take care. watch for our written publication later this afternoon. Um, and thanks again for all you're doing to um help our legislators to pass um as as little harm and reduction as possible for schools. Take care, everyone.